All of us have played RPGs before, so we’re smart enough to realize that the girls’ escape will not go smoothly. Once they head out the door, the camera switches back to the control room where a mortally wounded Officer Durr takes thirty God damn seconds to crawl shakily over to the console where Selphie deactivated the missiles. These kids really need to learn how to check for pulses after they “defeat” these guys — you’d think they would have learned their lesson after the Dollet debacle. Just before his tragic — and SLOW — death collapse, Officer Durr reactivates the missiles. At least that’s what I’m assuming — unlike all the other NPCs in this game, he doesn’t narrate his every move.

It looks like the convenient door leads to the entry room of the base, and unlike that nonsensical Pyrynn dungeon in Skies of Arcadia, I’m not going to bother checking the layout to see if that makes sense. Gift horses and mouths and all that. I find to my extreme delight that the game designers dropped their charade of kindness and kept the timer going during the previous scene. Yes, while I had the privilege of watching Officer Durr’s endless, scenery-chewing death throes, I lost 45 seconds off the clock. Not cool. Team Estrogen loses a comparatively short six seconds running out the front door, and they were even distracted by an ominous rumbling sound, which I’m sure won’t turn out to be anything important.

Well, what do you know, it’s time for another completely extraneous cutscene. Two vehicles speed out of the base, followed by a bunch of soldiers on foot. Although I’ve only encountered one officer in the entire base, and that one is worm food, a whole slew of them can now be seen escaping from the base. Even better, there’s a predictable sequence of running soldiers that goes: regular soldier, regular soldier, officer, regular soldier, regular soldier, officer. This loop repeats several times, and the strides of the soldiers are all perfectly synchronized for that extra lack of believability (or for that extra level of gay, if you prefer). Also, if there are that many guys fleeing the base in terror, why was the entrance to the base completely empty when Selphie and the others made their exit? The only “point” to this scene, if you can call it that, is a large vehicle that rolls onto the screen for a split second during the fade-out.

Thanks to that waste of my time, I’m now down to 8:41 left on the clock. Outside now, the girls run past the parking spaces from earlier — which are now empty — just as some FMV missile launchers rise up from the ground and shoot their brightly-painted loads into the sky. The three girls stare at them in surprise and dismay. Personally, I’m surprised that something of such an ejaculatory nature happened around Rinhoa in this game. Selphie bends over for a moment — possibly a conditioned response — before continuing. 8:06 left.

PENISES!

But oh no! Something blocks their exit! Remember that big vehicle I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago? Say hello to the next boss. It’s a big blue machine with six steaming phallic cannons protruding upward at the sides. It rumbles and vibrates, shooting blue electricity out the front and glowy blue particles out of the cannons. Flik would love this thing. Now that I’m looking at it, I think it’s the blanket-covered object that I saw earlier in the base. I doubt it’s about to be used for the purpose I originally suggested. That would hurt. A red-uniformed officer — his rank given as “Captain” — announces that he will now kill the three intruders so he doesn’t get in trouble with Sorceress Edea. He must have seen what happened to the last guy that pissed her off, and decided that was worse than staying behind in a base that’s about to blow sky high in less than ten minutes.

“Are you men ready!?” Captain Wienerhead randomly screams. Wait, are there guys on top of that thing? Two unseen drivers, probably making out in the cockpit (hee), respond in the affirmative. Boss battle time! With 7:51 left on the clock. Jesus.

The boss’s official name is another of those random alphanumeric strings that this game loves so much, but I’m going to rename it the Cockinator. Before I delve too much further into the details of the Cockinator, I’m going to confess that while I have learned my lesson in terms of numbers 4 and 5 on the earlier “Why I Suck” list, numbers 1, 2, 3, and 6 are very much still active. Long story short: Team Estrogen gets reamed to death by the Cockinator. It’s just as violent and horrible as it sounds. The last save point was just before the fucking control room, so let’s back up about twenty minutes. Don’t worry — I’m not going to re-recap the whole sequence in detail a second time. You think I’m going to do that shit on purpose after my last recapping experience?

This time around, I think I’m all smart with the re-junctioning and the fact that I pulled my head out of my ass far enough to remember the button combo for boosting. It’s a big day for me. Then, during the control room battle, one of Officer Durr’s buddies (we’ll say Sephiroth) confuses Rinhoa, causing her to waste an Elixir on the enemy. Reset!

Okay, third try. Maybe I can get a little sympathy from you guys by pointing out that I had to sit through that silly five-second strip reveal three times. No one deserves that, even a vile, penis-joking pervert such as myself. With the beatdown achieved and no rare items wasted, I futilely shut down the missile launch sequence and proceed straight to the self-destruct console. But wait! The game designers prove once again what petty little buttfuckers they are by forcing me to search all the other panels before I’m allowed to access the one in the adjoining room. This makes no sense from either a gameplay or a plot standpoint.

Twenty minutes of footage later, I’m finally back at the Cockinator. Don’t mind that angry hissing sound you hear. The trick to this battle, as I learned the hard way, is to repeatedly boost Quezacotl Quetzalcoatl. Since the Cockinator, true to its nickname, enjoys violating me roughly, I also have to draw and cast Protect a lot. It’s really a fascinating battle. The best part is that every time I reach a certain damage threshold, one of the CockCannons shudders and explodes in a ball of flames. I just discovered my ideal painful fate for the game designers. As the Cockinator slowly disintegrates, its operators start to panic. Finally, when the two remaining penises are about to go off, one of the soldiers screams, “I can’t control it!” I don’t know about you, but I would not stick around when there’s a rampaging dick on the loose. It’s too late for the three soldiers, however. With one last gigantic explosion, the Cockinator shoots backward, leaving a huge scorch mark in its wake. And I have 2:05 left on the clock! The pain of my earlier failure starts to subside just a little bit.

Clearly, the Captain at one time resided in the Suikoden universe.

I should have known better than to let myself experience any positive feelings. Despite being at the center of a massive explosion, Captain Wienerhead and his two underlings manage to make it out alive. Oh sure, they’re engulfed in flames as they run back onto the screen, but it’s not like it actually hurts them. Fire only hurts my party. Duh. So now I have to fight these three asshats with only two of my party members still alive. Those two party members, namely Quistis and Rinhoa, are kind enough to stand by and wait for the soldiers to finish their conversation. The gist of the conversation: first they’ll kill my party, then they’ll repair the limp Cockinator. I’m not sure how they’ll manage both of those tasks in the 1 minute and 45 seconds before the base blows.

Luckily for my blood pressure, a simple GF summon takes care of these three fuckheads, by Rinhoa no less. Ouch, that is harsh. The smoldering remains of the Cockinator sit directly in front of the closed gate. Well crap. All that work, and not only did the members of Team Estrogen fail to prevent the missile launch, but now they’re going to die horribly when the base explodes. You just can’t trust chicks to do anything right. Now, you and I know that the girls are going to survive this. There is no way the game designers are going to kill off their precious Mary Sue Rinhoa. But these characters in their fictional world don’t know this. As far as they’re concerned, they have roughly a minute left to live. Of course, they still have plenty of time to angst for a while.

Still not as flaming as Squally.

Normally I would bitch about sitting through such an emo dramafest without the payoff of an actual character death. In this case, the “death” scene is so unintentionally hilarious that I can somewhat forgive the game designers for letting me down. Don’t get me wrong — I’m still bitter that I have to deal with Rinhoa for the rest of the game. I don’t want you to think I’m suddenly okay with her presence.

Once the girls figure out they’re trapped in the doomed missile base, they sink to the ground, kind of like my lop Cinnamon when she realizes I’m going to pick her up. I suddenly feel awful for comparing my beloved rabbit to Rinhoa. “(Squally will take care of the rest, right?)” Selphie thinks. I’m sure he will, if by “take care of,” you mean “have buttsex with” and by “the rest,” you mean “Seifer.” “(I wonder if he’ll organize the Garden Festival?)” she wonders next. Right away, she knows that’s not going to happen. At least she has some awareness of reality. However, when you’re about to die and your first thought is the fate of a fucking school party…I think that’s when your obsession with the Garden Festival has gone too far. Jeebus. Not that Squally wouldn’t be able to pull together a very memorable and fabulous festival.

Suddenly, Rinhoa stands up, shrieking to the sky, “I don’t wanna die! There’s so much in life I want to enjoy!” She even gestures dramatically during this wankfest. I can’t prevent my eyes from rolling, but I’m still snickering at her pain. Then it gets even better. “Squally… Why did you choose us? Did he choose us because he knew this would happen?” Quistis wonders. Okay, I’m not sure why, but I find it hilarious that Quistis automatically assumes that Squally not only knew they would both fuck up the mission and die, but he also thought it would be the perfect way to get rid of them. Sure, I doubt he’d cry over their loss, but in my recap canon, I just figured that Squally wanted these chicks out of his hair for a couple of days. Maybe he’s more diabolical than I gave him credit for.

But if you die, there’s so much more in life I can enjoy.

The comedy continues while Selphie internally monologues about how Squally sent them on the mission because he believed in them. The way she goes on and on about it makes it sound like she’s really trying hard to convince herself. She’s clearly forgotten that she was the one who chose to go to the missile base — Squally technically only picked Quistis and Rinhoa. Before Selphie can get any more delusional — for example, by thinking that Squally “chose” her because he was madly in love with her all along — the ground shakes and an impressive FMV explosion sends massive fireballs and plumes of black smoke into the atmosphere. The camera cuts quickly upward, away from the girls. After all, we don’t actually see them torn limb from limb, then it’s totally believable that they would survive.

I highly doubt Squally thought about girls doing it.

The camera cuts to an overhead view of the base with even more black smoke and fire. I’m not sure about you guys, but I think the base is gone now. And how ironic that this recap has contained such a large amount of fire and flames and Squally hasn’t even shown up yet. Speaking of the flaming Squally, the action cuts directly to the gates of Balamb Garden as Squally (yay!) and his two male partners run onscreen. The place is still intact, so I’m not sure how this part lines up chronologically with the missile base infiltration I just recapped. Remember that Selphie and the others drove a relatively short distance on the map to the missile base, then spent just over an hour from start to fiery non-death. Squally’s team, on the other hand, had to ride the trains between continents to get here, something that seems like it would have taken longer than an hour. Maybe all of Selphie’s drunken driving on the world map really did kill a lot of time. Even so, Squally considers the fact that Garden is safe a sign that Team Estrogen succeeded in their mission. Then he pulls his head out of his ass and realizes that the missiles may be en route. Make up your mind, Squally.

I’m still confused by the timing issues, but I want to wrap up this recap, so I’ll wait until next time to really delve into any nonsense I find. For now, Squally wants to find Headmaster Cid. Once he’s done his SeeDly duty by reporting the imminent attack, Squally’s hoping he can find a bit of time to spend with one or both of his current male companions. Sure, neither of them is Seifer, but they all might die today, and he’s not about to die without indulging in some last minute buttsex. So finding Cid should be fairly straightforward, right? I mean, he’s just up the elevator. Oh man, I crack myself up sometimes. Of course it turns to be a huge endeavor.

On the next screen, the entire population of Garden is running around the front entrance like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. One of the creepy Garden Faculty fucks is screaming, “Find the headmaster!” Not that he’s bothering to help. Ass. At first, Squally believes that an evacuation is taking place. That is, until Faculty Fuckhead adds, “Seize him! Kill him if you have to!” Whoa, what is this bullshit? Did Cid wear a particularly offensive sweater vest to the last administrative meeting? Or get caught in the “secret area” with one of his male students? Did he perform one Genie impression too many? Okay, that last one would warrant a death sentence.

You’ll have to wait until next time to find out the conclusion to this riveting cliffhanger. Let’s all hope I don’t take another three and a half years to write it. I still can’t get over that. As much as I missed Squally during this recap, I have to say that I chose wisely in bringing Rinhoa to the missile base. She had, like, five lines, and none of them involved nagging or hitting on Squally. In the next recap, I will cover even more reasons why I was a genius for not bringing her to Garden. Until next time!